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That which is used to fill a cavity or any empty space, or to supply a deficiency; as, filling for a cavity in a tooth, a depression in a roadbed, the space between exterior and interior walls of masonry, the pores of open-grained wood, the space between the outer and inner planks of a vessel, etc.

The filling below or beneath; the under part of a building. Sir H. Wotton.

To surrender or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity; as, to abdicate the throne, the crown, the papacy.

Filling up; promoting granulation of wounds or ulcers. -- n.

The act of filling up with earth, or of forming land with alluvial earth. [Obs.]

Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive. Heaven's awful Monarch. Milton.

action. Back charges, charges brought forward after an account has been made up. -- Back filling (Arch.), the mass of materials used in filling up the space between two walls, or between the inner and outer faces of a wall, or upon the haunches of an arch or vault. -- Back pressure. (Steam Engine) See under Pressure.…

A rebate or chase in masonry left to receive a permanent slab or other filling.

It is made in its simplest form by filling a graduated glass tube about 34 inches long with mercury and inverting it in a cup containing mercury. The column of mercury in the tube descends until balanced by the weight of the atmosphere, and its rise or fall under varying conditions is a measure of the change in the atm…

A sheet of cotton used for filling quilts or comfortables; batting.

A cement used in making joints, filling cracks, etc. For iron, the principal constituents are iron borings and sal ammoniac; for wood, white lead or litharge, whiting, and linseed oil.

nd expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind. Bellows camera, in photography, a form of camera, which can be drawn out like an accordion or bellows. -- Hydrostatic bellows. See Hydrostatic. -- A pair of bellows, the ordinary househol…

A fungus (Ustilago foetida) which affects the ear of cereals, filling the grains with a fetid dust; -- also called pepperbrand.

To shine forth; to brighten; to become smooth and glossy, as from swelling or filling out; hence, to grow large. A slender poet must have time to grow, And spread and burnish as his brothers do. Dryden. My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell. Herbert.

Filling with care or colicitube; exposing to concern, anxiety, or trouble; painful. The careful cold beinneth for to creep. Spenser. By Him that raised me to this careful height. Shak.

A kind of pie or pudding made by lining a dish with slices of bread, and filling it with bread soaked in milk, and baked. Charlotte Russe (, or Charlotte à la russe Etym: [F., lit., Russian charlotte] (Cookery), a dish composed of custard or whipped cream, inclosed in sponge cake.

To render unable to breathe by filling, pressing upon, or squeezing the windpipe; to stifle; to suffocate; to strangle. With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Shak.

A kind of light pastry, usually in the form of a small round cake, and with a filling, as of jelly or cream.

To stop (a channel) by filling it, and preventing passage through it; as, to constipate the capillary vessels.

A horizontal row of corbels, with the panels or filling between them; also, less properly used to include the stringcourse on them.